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The video continued as the woman put the gun in her coat pocket, then stopped, probably surprised, and looked straight at the camera for a second before going down the line, collecting cash in a duffle bag. Her face was pale, and she reminded me of the way I remembered Debbie… But then she’d been five at the time, and her most notable characteristics had been the tiny birthmark on the back of her neck and the green in her eyes.
The quick video shot wasn’t clear enough to determine the presence of either of those things.
The tellers appeared scared as they handed over the money, and some of the customers were squirming a bit on the floor.
He stopped the video again. “This is where it went wrong.”
He restarted the video as the woman brought the bag back to the man. Then the man turned to his right and fired a shot. A teller dropped to the floor in a separate frame, and the others dove behind the counters.
He stopped the playback again.
“What’s the teller’s condition?” Parsons asked.
“Stable,” Boxer replied.
“Good thing he was a terrible shot. We’ve been worried about exactly this, because the guy likes to shoot his gun,” Adam added.
I hadn’t seen anything to provoke the gunman, and all that ran through my head was the Patty Hearst scenario.
“Why did he shoot?” Newsom asked, echoing my question. “Get anything from the witness statements?”
Parsons leaned over to whisper. “This is not good.”
I nodded. No matter how it had started, she had joined in the robbery, and when she was found, she’d be treated as the accomplice, not the victim, especially with a shooting involved. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but that wouldn’t matter to the prosecutors. The circumstances were damning.
“Don’t know. Maybe she said something, or moved too fast,” Adam answered. “So that’s the first screwup, and here’s the second.”
He restarted it and the pair left, the man followed by the woman.
“What did we miss?” Parsons asked.
Adam backed it up and went forward in slow motion. The man turned, and the woman leaned over a bit, then straightened and followed.
“See it?” He backed it up and restarted it.
On the second try, Parsons saw it. “She spit on the floor.”
“That’s right. Forensics pulled DNA from that spit, and that’s when you got the call.”
“Why did she do that?” Newsom asked.
Adam shrugged. “Don’t know. Like I said, stupid. Once we catch her, we got a sure conviction on the robbery and attempted murder—thanks to DNA, because we got no prints at any of the scenes.”
“The car?” Parsons asked.
Boxer shook his head. “Stolen plates, no defining decals, a dent in the right front is all we have to go on so far.”
“Video of them casing it ahead of time?” Newsom asked.
Adam stiffened. “As hard as it is for you west coast whiz kids to believe, we do know what we’re doing. We checked the old footage, back six weeks. So far nothing, but we’re still working it. Like I said, amateurs. This is a new crew. They got a little money out of the heists, so they’ll be back and shooting other people if we don’t find them first. Sorry you had to make the trip out, but we’ve got it from here, and we’ll let you know when we catch her.”
He hadn’t used the wordfind. Instead he’d saidcatch.
I couldn’t believe he’d just dismissed us like that.
“Kidnapping takes priority,” Newsom said.
“That was yesterday. Already ran it up to the AD. Because of the shots fired, the robbery takes priority, and we have the lead.”
